The present invention relates, in general, to a distillation device for purification of water, and more particularly to a compact, continuous flow distiller for supplying pure drinking water.
The global need for sources of safe, potable water is commonly recognized, particularly in areas where health problems resulting from unsanitary water conditions is apparent. One such high risk area is found in regions where hazardous waste materials have been dumped with resulting runoff into water supplies. Another high risk area is in high population density regions or in hospitals where various diseases may be found in high concentrations. Current water supplies thus are subject to contamination from many sources, and water pollution has reached alarming rates in many areas.
Numerous attempts have been made to provide potable water, but most use filtration systems that have the serious disadvantage of creating bacterial breeding grounds. Water distillers have been provided in an attempt to overcome this problem, but such devices usually utilize condensers and fan assemblies which are disposed on top of a boiler vessel, with the cooling effect of the condenser being negatively impacted by the radiant heat from the boiling water in the vessel and from the heat source. Furthermore, most water distillers use at least some plastic or other less durable materials that negate the precision of the device and have a negative effect on the purity of the distillation process. Heat and steam react with plastic and other less durable materials, adding bad odor, taste and chemicals to the distilled water.
Most water distillers are noisy because they have an electric fan to move ambient air in order to enhance heat exchange in the condenser. Some water distillers have attempted to overcome this by using cooling water to enhance heat exchange, but this creates waste water. Further, the use of an electric fan or cooling water to enhance heat exchange is a waste of natural resources.
Furthermore, prior art water distillers are difficult to maintain in good operating condition because of the difficulties encountered in cleaning sediment and scale from the interior of the distiller. Most water distillers require a substantial amount of disassembly involving multiple parts in order to fully clean the boiler. In many cases, the user will not realize the difficulty of this job until the water distiller fails to produce water up to its rated capacity.
Numerous attempts have been made to facilitate the descaling and cleaning of distillers, but such attempts have not completely solved the problems in the prior art. In most cases, such attempts have resulted only in additional components, requiring additional maintenance and increasing the cost of the unit. Thus, the maintenance of these prior devices is an acknowledged disadvantage.
To avoid the need to disassemble a distiller, many attempts have been made to address the cleaning problem by the use of after market chemicals for removing scale. However, this has not completely eliminated the difficult manual cleaning and maintenance of distiller components. Furthermore, the use of chemicals for this purpose is a waste of natural resources and ultimately adds to the already-serious pollution problems.
Other attempts to solve the cleaning problem have included installation of additional electrical circuitry and sensors to periodically raise the temperature of a heating element when it is not submerged in water. This is done in an attempt to break away accumulated scale, but has not eliminated the difficult manual cleaning and maintenance problem. Furthermore, in all probability, the raising of the temperature high enough to break the scale in this manner will damage the element and other materials around it because of excess heat.
Another problem found in the prior art devices is that of distillate retention in condensers which serves to increase the heat in the condenser and retards heat exchange.